Misty May Morn

John Henry Twachtman, Misty May Morn, 1899, oil on canvas, 25 ¹⁄₈ x 30 in. (63.8 x 76.1 cm.), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly, 1929.6.141

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Artwork Details

Title: Misty May Morn
Artist: John Henry Twachtman
Date: 1899
Location: Not on view
Dimensions: 25 ¹⁄₈ x 30 in. (63.8 x 76.1 cm.)
Credit Line: Gift of John Gellatly
Mediums: oil
Mediums Description: oil on canvas
Classifications: Painting
Subjects: Landscape — tree
Landscape — river
Landscape — season — spring
Landscape — weather — fog
Landscape — time — morning
Object Number: 1929.6.141
Linked Open Data: https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/1929.6.141

Artwork Description

John Henry Twachtman exhibited Morning, now called Misty May Morn, to considerable praise at an exhibition of the Ten in 1899. The Ten was a group of American artists, including Twachtman, who left the conservative Society of American Artists to pursue the loose brushstrokes and bright palette of impressionism, which was considered ultramodern at the time. This influence can be seen in Misty May Morn. Twachtman used delicate color effects to capture the spring countryside in Greenwich, Connecticut, where he purchased a farm and settled with his family in 1889. The farm became the subject of many of his best-known landscapes, particularly his winter scenes. Misty May Morn remains the only painting from his Connecticut years that Twachtman specifically dated.